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Using Asymmetrical Designs for Environmental Impact Assessment of Unplanned Disturbances

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Abstract

Environmental impact assessment of unplanned disturbances is often difficult to accomplish due to the absence of ‘before’ data for the impacted sites. In an attempt to overcome this problem, a beyond BACI model is used in order to detect possible changes in the temporal patterns of variation when no previous data are available. The model attempted to detect changes in the abundance of macroinvertebrate species inhabiting the intertidal mussel matrix after an oil spill which occurred in northern Portugal. The detection of a significant impact failed, most probably due to low temporal replication. An extension of the analysis, including the hierarchical arrangement of temporal variability in periods, suggests that increasing the number of sampling times may result in a higher efficiency of the model.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CIBIO, Centro de Investigaçãem Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos Campus Agrário de Vairão, 4485-661, Vairão, Portugal

    Nuno C. Queiroz, Fernando P. Lima, Pedro A. Ribeiro & António M. Santos

  2. Departmento de Zoologia-Antropologia, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto, 4099-002, Porto, Portugal

    Nuno C. Queiroz, Fernando P. Lima, Sílvia G. Pereira & António M. Santos

Authors
  1. Nuno C. Queiroz
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  2. Fernando P. Lima
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  3. Pedro A. Ribeiro
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  4. Sílvia G. Pereira
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  5. António M. Santos
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Correspondence to António M. Santos.

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Queiroz, N.C., Lima, F.P., Ribeiro, P.A. et al. Using Asymmetrical Designs for Environmental Impact Assessment of Unplanned Disturbances. Hydrobiologia 555, 223–227 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-005-1118-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-005-1118-0

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